Let's face it: as far as music content is concerned, there just isn't an online market in India. Motorola owned digital music distributor SoundBuzz has released an estimate of music sales in India, and things don't look good for the Internet space: That's a staggering difference in the legal downloads, and clearly, there's only one winner. But what this also indicates, is a clear dependancy of the music labels in India, on mobile distribution. That means they are even more dependent on companies like Hungama, Mauj, Soundbuzz, and of late, OnMobile for revenue. Around two years ago, industry executives used to talk about how leveraged Hungama Mobile is, by paying a huge minimum guarantee to T-Series, and only making up the margins. I wonder if we've seen a reversal of fortune now - with significant dependancy on Hungama's distribution network, and the MG, is T-Series now dependent on Hungama? Download the report here. We do need more data, though - Mobile music consists of full track downloads, as well as derivatives like monophonic and polyphonic ringtones, truetones, Caller RingBack Tones (CRBTs), and even music videos. So what we haven't got from soundbuzz is - an estimate of how much of this business is CRBTs, and also how full track downloads have evolved over the years. I wonder what makes Soundbuzz estimate that online legal downloads, which during 2006 and 2007 wallowed at $0.04 million (around Rs. 22 lakhs), will suddenly jump up to $0.22 million (Rs. 1 crores). Or is it…
